


the scariest part (is letting go)

by huphilpuffs



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2009-present, Canon Compliant, Coming Out, Established Relationship, Family, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-18 14:51:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19336756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/huphilpuffs/pseuds/huphilpuffs
Summary: Dan's journey with sexuality continues long after he meets Phil.





	the scariest part (is letting go)

**Author's Note:**

> I don't normally put "this is all a work fiction" disclaimers at the beginning of my stories, but given the subject matter of this one and recent events, I feel like it's important to note that this is just a work of fiction. This is just my version of a potential journey with sexuality, based on what Dan shared and my own experiences. If you don't feel comfortable reading it, you really don't have to.

 

“I feel gay.”

Dan says it into the darkness of Phil’s bedroom. His gaze has been locked on the window for far too long now, watching the faintest fall of snowflakes outside. His fingers are laced through Phil’s, his whole body bare, back pressed to Phil’s chest. He can feel the rise and fall of Phil’s ribs against his spine, and tries to enjoy the warm puffs of breath against the back of his neck.

He had for a while, in the first moments after Phil slipped out of him, cleaned them both up, and slid into bed behind him. When his head was still fuzzy with all the happy post-orgasm feelings that could fit inside him. When his heart was still racing to the beat of him falling in love.

It’s been a while now. Dan’s not even sure if Phil’s still awake.

He’s not sure he wants him to be.

Dan’s bum still feels loose and a little achy. It’s felt that way before, just one time with a boy he’d met in a club just after he’d turned eighteen, but everything else feels different this time.

Phil is different. He’s Dan’s proper _boyfriend_. They’re going to wake up next to each other in the morning, lanky limbs all tangled together and giddy smiles meeting in sloppy morning breath kisses. Dan already knows he’s gonna love it then, when he has Phil’s smile to remind him that it’s okay.

Right now, though, he just has a dark sky and an even darker mind, an ache in his ass and a possessive palm pressed against his stomach.

Phil’s thumb swipes gently at where Dan’s ribs jut out.

“I don’t know if you mean that in a good or bad way,” he says, voice sleepy.

It’s just enough to have Dan remembering he’s never actually used that word with Phil before. On formsprings it had been _I’m bi_ , and on Skype it had been _yeah, I, uh, like boys too_. In person, the press of their lips and the quiet confessions of long-known crushes says enough.

Here, everything feels like it’s edging on too much. Phil’s tired and Dan probably should be too. It’s not time to delve into everything that’s churning angrily in his chest, clouding the parts of him that could probably burst with joy if he let them.

Dan swallows, squeezing Phil’s hand gently. “Neither do I.”

The heaviness between his ribs says otherwise, but Dan knows it’ll fade by the time he falls asleep.

\---

Phil asks about it one time.

They’re sitting side by side in Phil’s flat, scrolling through the comments on their latest videos. Dan must move when he reads one, because Phil’s gaze flicks from his computer screen, up to catch Dan’s. Their knees bump together on the cushions. Dan almost wants to close his laptop and forget he even read the stupid thing.

It’s not like he hasn’t gotten similar comments before. There’s no reason why this particular one would make his insides bristle.

But a half smile quirks at the corner of Phil’s mouth. “What’d you read?” he says, and Dan decides he’s been running from this conversation for long enough.

He points to the screen and watches too closely as Phil scans the comment quickly.

“You don’t like that word, do you?”

Dan’s chest goes tight. Part of him wants to ask how Phil can tell, but it’s hardly the first time it’s shown up. There’s been friends who use it because they’re both boys, dating, and it’s easier than any alternative. YouTube comments where it appears again and again and _again._

Voices in the back of Dan’s mind that only appear when he’s particularly disinterested in dealing with the echoes of sexuality crises past.

Of course Phil’s noticed. Phil notices a lot of things no one else seems to. He’s just not really the type to ask.

Except today, apparently. Dan should have kept the damn comment to himself.

“Not really,” he says.

Phil nods, mouth pinched into a thoughtful line. “Can I ask why?”

Dan shrugs, sorta because he doesn’t want Phil to ask but mostly because he doesn’t know how to put it all into words, not yet. It sounds silly when he simplifies it, but his brain seems to short circuit whenever he tries to delve too deep.

“Just like, bullies from back at school and stuff,” he says. “It brings back memories.”

“Oh,” says Phil. “Yeah, I get that.”

Dan doesn’t really doubt that he does. Phil’s tall and skinny and nerdy just like he is. He’s pretty much just as queer as Dan is. He grew up in 1990s England with people probably a lot like the one’s Dan was surrounded by. Dan knows he was, because Phil’s told him about it in snippets when the topic of school has come up.

But part of him still thinks the memories don’t linger as hauntingly for Phil as they do for him.

He hums, and mumbles a quiet “Yeah,” and hopes it’s enough.

\---

Sometimes he doesn’t mind.

It’s always in the privacy of their own home, away from prying eyes. Something will happen, like Phil poking his finger into Dan’s side to tickle him, and next thing Dan knows they’re pressed together and giggling and catching each other’s mouths in clumsy kisses. It reminds Dan of the first few months, when long weeks of Skype calls built up to giddy, clingy meetings when he could hardly let Phil go.

Today, Phil tugged Dan into his lap because he was losing so badly at their round of Mario Kart he deemed the game no longer worth it. Dan knows he would have won anyway, so he settles for letting Phil pepper kisses to his face, crinkled with joy.

He slides his fingers into Phil’s hair and pulls him into a kiss, quick and fleeting and happy.

“You’re distracting me,” he hisses, but it gets lost in a giggle and the loop of Mario Kart music as neither of them finish the race.

Phil giggles against his cheek, drops a kiss there that’s a little too wet.

Dan laughs, too. He clings to his boyfriend and lets himself feel like he’s eighteen again, floating in a bubble of the Manchester Eye far, far up in the sky.

And when the thought – _this is so gay_ – drifts into his mind, fleeting and fluttery, he just pulls Phil back to him and kisses him again.

\---

Outside the privacy of his own home, his own head, it’s different.

Plastered across every corner of the internet that he’s learned to occupy, it’s so, so, _so_ different.

He slams his laptop shut, because he can’t bear to read it anymore. It already seems plastered in the back of his mind, flashing behind his eyes in the sans serif fonts of every website he dared to open. He presses the heel of his palms against his face and hopes, so very desperately, that it’ll make it go away.

It doesn’t.

His chest goes tight. He hugs his knees to make the ache there go away, pressing harsh breaths into the dip between his knees.

That’s how Phil finds him, curled up in a ball in bed, smearing tears and snot against his trousers and Dan doesn’t care. He can’t care. Everything else going on takes up every ounce of his ability to care.

Phil’s hand lands on his back. His lips land in Dan’s hair, messy and curly cause he couldn’t be bothered to fix it this morning.

“You’re okay,” he whispers, over and over and over again. “You’re gonna be okay, okay?”

Dan’s chest buckles. The breath he tries to take is scratchy like denim. “They _know_ , Phil.”

“I know,” says Phil.

Dan chokes on a cry. “My family doesn’t even know yet.”

“I know.”

Fingers trip down his spine, as though Phil’s starting to feel helpless too.

Dan peeks out from between his knees. His eyes feel swollen. His whole face feels gross and sticky. His whole body feels broken.

“They’re calling me gay,” he whispers.

Phil combs his fingers through his hair and says, just as hopelessly, “I know.”

\---

“I can’t do it,” says Dan. “I’m not ready.”

They’re sitting at the table now, but Dan’s knees are still hugged to his chest, his breaths still coming too harsh, too fast. He stares at the stickers stuck on the back of Phil’s laptop, every cheerful splash of colour, and tries to tell himself it’s okay, it’s a normal day, he can calm down, as though he doesn’t know exactly what’s lighting up the screen.

There’s probably hundreds of little messages they haven’t addressed.

Dan still hasn’t braved his mentions, not since the first glance sent his mind whirling back to darkness he thought he’d left behind.

Phil looks up from the screen. His brows are furrowed, his whole face drawn. “Okay,” he says. “Then we’ll lie.”

Dan feels himself frown, his weight sinking heavier onto his knees. He feels like a little kid again when he says, “That sounds bad.”

All of this is making him feel like a little kid again, running away from the slightest implication that he could be gay _._ Except now there’s a voice in the back of his mind reminding him that he’s going to go to bed and cling to his boyfriend in just a few hours. And there’s countless other voices, long since erased from his life, hissing the word like an insult, over and over and _over_ again.

“You’re not ready,” says Phil. “That’s what matters most.”

He closes his laptop on a million unanswered questions, and reaches over to rest a hand on Dan’s knee.

\---

The panic doesn’t fade.

Phil’s been taking the video off the internet for months now. Questions are slowly fading from Dan’s social medias. His parents never found out, never asked, never suspected. People from his past didn’t pop out of his memories to repeat all the terrible things they used to say, but with proof this time.

It should have faded.

But Dan’s mind still hisses at every message. His chest still goes tight when his gaze catches the word on his screen. His hands shake as he answers. He keeps them off camera so the viewers can’t see.

Sometimes, in the middle of a liveshow, he can’t keep his mouth shut.

The questions that linger feel like accusations. Feel like the jeer of _gay_ like an insult. Feel like the taunts of bullies in secondary school hallways.

And the pressure in his chest, quickening his heart rate and stealing his breath, feels too much like the endless need to prove his own heterosexuality that he thought he’d given up on.

He closes his laptop when the liveshow ends, shoves it aside like it insulted him. Part of him feels like it does.

From across the lounge, Phil doesn’t say anything.

\---

“Does it bother you?” Dan asks one day.

Phil looks up from his computer, brows furrowed, confused. It makes sense. Dan sometimes forgets that the thoughts swirling in the back of his mind aren’t always spoken out loud. He tries, and fails, to remember that the same topics don’t haunt Phil the way they haunt him.

“Does what?”

He shrugs. “The fact that I don’t like, like, the word –” Dan swallows against the anxious knot in his stomach “– _gay_.”

Phil frowns, the way he does when he realizes Dan’s thinking about something far deeper than the situation requires. It’s a face Dan’s pretty sure he’s too familiar with. He should probably stop contemplating his entire life when he’s supposed to be watching cat videos on YouTube.

He so very wishes it was that easy.

“Should I be bothered?”

“I dunno,” says Dan. “I just – You know I’m, like, sure I like boys, right?”

The corner of Phil’s mouth quirks up slightly, eyes narrowing with the faintest hint of teasing. “I feel like I have ample evidence you like boys, Dan.”

He rolls his eyes, a silent laugh slipping past the weight in his chest. “Whatever,” he says. “You know what I mean. Like, you know I’m sure about us, right? It’s just that word.”

Phil’s gaze softens, smile faltering. His foot loops over Dan’s, a quiet comfort. “I know,” he says. “You have trauma related to that word. You not liking it has nothing to do with me.”

He sounds so sure when he says it.

Dan just nods and mumbles a quiet, “Okay. Good.”

The word _trauma_ bounces around in his head long after he’s turned back to his computer.

\---

They don’t tell the BBC.

Dan ignores the anxious part of him reminding him that a little while ago, he might have. That was before.

Today, he sits in a room with high up execs who wear suits and have big desks that make them look important. He holds a pen in his hand and signs his name on a contract for something he never thought would happen. He agrees to be half of a best friend duo, and that’s all.

The person sitting across the desk smiles at them. Dan’s worked with her before. He wonders, just for a moment, and then another, and another, and another, if she knows. He doesn’t need to tell people for them to find out. Not anymore.

The thought makes him nauseous.

“We’ll see you guys again soon,” she says. “I’ll email you if we need anything else on our end between now and then.”

Phil nods. Dan does too, just a second too late.

They leave like best friends, with waves and laughs and a practiced amount of distance between them.

Dan pretends he doesn’t know they’re going to get home and celebrate with pizza and cheap wine and sex.

\---sid

Sometimes, it gets lost in a dreary jumble of everything that weighs, dark and heavy, on his mind.

There's insecurity about his own creativity, staring at the stream of things he’s made, none of which seem quite good enough. There’s relationships that leave him feeling unsteady, vaguely unwelcome. There’s parts of his past that make him feel like a failure, like the law degree he never finished.

And there’s every other little bit of apathetic sadness that Dan’s never been able to explain, but remains an ever-present burden weighing down on his heart.

He thought this was supposed to go away when you stop being a teenager.

So much was supposed to go away when he finally reached adulthood.

He rolls onto his side, stares at the cup of coffee Phil left for him so long ago it’s probably gone cold by now, and wishes all of it would just go away.

\---

They write a book.

Well, they’re writing a book. It’s still a work in progress.

They hunch over their laptops, fingers splayed on their keyboards, and tell stories Dan’s pretty sure have almost all been heard before, in some capacity. Phil laughs at Dan’s typos, and Dan laughs at Phil’s weird adjective choices, and it’s hard work in the easiest way.

Most of the time, anyway.

Some days they get to segments where the whole story has never been told.

One day, Dan starts writing about school. His finger aimless taps a series of Gs into a blank document. His brain goes numb. They stay up into the wee hours of the morning that day, and yet Dan comes away with barely any words. Phil ends up with a lot more, and yet he hardly seems to care.

He swipes Dan’s laptop away and draws him in. Outside, the sky is dark and the ground is lit up with the infinite expanse of London lights. Dan feels like the inside of his mind might match, all his ideas buried under a few pitch black thoughts.

“Writer’s block?” says Phil.

“Something like that.”

“Wanna talk it out?”

Dan shrugs. “School just has a lot of stuff I’m not ready to talk about,” he says. “Like, well, you know.”

“Then don’t talk about it,” says Phil. “I’m not.”

He makes it sound so easy. Phil makes a lot of things sound easy. Dan wishes his brain worked like that.

Instead, it’s chanting old songs about him being gay that classmates used to sing on the bus. It’s repeating the way the word used to be hissed in his ears. It’s remembering all the nights in secondary school Dan spent wishing he was straight.

“Okay,” he says.

He spends the rest of the night trying to figure out how to make his stories feel authentic while leaving them so incomplete.

\---

The first time he goes to therapy, every unspoken truth feels like it’s on display.

He’s buried himself in a hoodie, as though that will hide the tense line of his shoulders, the defensive cross of his arms over his chest. The man sitting across from him has his legs crossed and a confident smile and Dan feels the juxtaposition acutely.

After introducing himself as Eric, the first thing his therapist says is “Tell me a bit about yourself.”

Dan feels his every insecurity press painfully against his ribs.

“I, uh, I’m twenty-three,” he says. “I make YouTube videos for a living. And I have a radio show with the BBC. And – You’re, like, sworn to secrecy, right?”

“Unless I think you’re a threat to yourself or others.”

Dan nods. He already knew that. “Okay, then I’m also, like, writing a book right now. it should be published within the year.”

His therapist smiles, all polite and professional. “Congratulations.”

“Yeah,” says Dan. He nods again, just to make his body feel less awkward.

There’s a pause. Dan’s not sure if he’s supposed to speak or wait for more questions. It probably doesn’t matter. If he asked, Eric would probably say something about doing whatever makes him most comfortable.

Nothing makes him comfortable, though. That’s kind of the problem.

Eric speaks first. “What about relationships? Family? Friends?”

“Uh,” says Dan. “My family lives in Wokingham. I have a few good friends, but I’m, like, a total introvert.”

He looks down, tugging at the strings of his hoodie. There’s more, right at the tip of Dan’s tongue. His therapist is waiting for more. And he can’t tell anyone anything. It shouldn’t matter.

Dan could say: _And I have a boyfriend. His name’s Phil. We’ve been together for five years and live together and work together. He’s my best friend._

What he actually says is “And I live with my best friend, Phil.”

\---

Putting their relationship on display is always hard.

Part of Dan has gotten used to it. Joint ventures make up most of his career by now and most of him really loves it that way. Working with Phil is easy. Having fun with him is easy.

Setting up a camera in their spare room and filming themselves playing video games is so very easy.

Making them suitable for the internet is the hard part.

Dan’s mouse hovers over a clip. He plays it back over and over and over again, until the exact intonation of his own voice lingers vividly in his mind. Phil makes a joke and Dan laughs too loudly, stares too fondly. It’s a break from their rehearsed back and forth, from the voices they’ve learned to put on for the radio that have since translated onto YouTube.

It’s not that bad. Gay-adjacent perhaps, but not unlike all of Phil’s other innuendos.

In the clip, Dan’s eyes crinkle and his voice goes squeaky and Phil leans in towards him like he would if they were playing a game in the lounge without a camera filming their every move.

It makes Dan want to keep it that way, to wrap their whole public lives up and keep what’s between him and Phil just _theirs._

Part of him wants to leave it there, though, just to show off how good they are together. Maybe he would, if there weren’t a thousand comments of years past being whispered at the back of his mind.

He right clicks, and cuts that bit out.

\---

When he tells his therapist, it’s hardly even on purpose.

He’s talking about his relationship with his parents, because apparently that has a long term impact on one’s mental well-being, when he says, “I like boys.”

And then “Phil’s actually my boyfriend.”

And finally “My parents don’t know.”

Eric smiles, like he does when he thinks they’ve reached something important. “Thanks for telling me,” he says. “Is this a new relationship?”

Dan laughs quietly. “Not exactly,” he says. “It’s been, like, five years now.”

“Oh,” says Eric. He’s chuckling, too. It puts Dan’s mind at ease a little bit. “Well, why don’t you tell me a bit about your relationship with Phil, then?”

Dan does. Because out of all of this, his relationship with Phil is the one thing he’s always been proud of.

\---

The panic fades with time.

Dan notices it one day when he’s reading comments on a gaming video. One of them calls them gay, and Dan’s brain doesn’t instantly seize up into a tense mess of every terrible memory he has related to the word.

He just laughs.

Phil looks up from his own computer. “You know the rules,” he says. “If you find a funny animal video you need to share.”

“Too bad I didn’t find a funny animal video then,” says Dan, smiling at Phil’s responding pout. “Just reading the comments on the latest video.”

“Oh? Anything interesting?”

Dan shrugs. There isn’t really, not that he’s found. The one comment his gaze keeps tracing is hardly original, buried in a sea of similar ones spanning the entirety of their careers. Still, he highlights it with his cursor and hands his laptop over.

Phil will understand why Dan’s chest feels all bubbly with something quite not happy, but definitely better than everything that preceded it.

He reads the comment. When he looks back at Dan, it’s with a smile.

\---

Their boundaries shift.

Well, Dan’s do. Phil’s might have always been here, just waiting for Dan to catch up, open up. Sometimes, Dan wants to ask, wants to know if he’s been the one holding Phil to strict limits, but he knows it would only serve to upset himself.

Phil’s always been understanding of Dan’s anxieties. He figured out how to keep this part of their lives a secret. He sits back and smiles as Dan slowly lets it be more public again.

More jokes make it into gaming videos. More little anecdotes make it into the book. They write fanfiction about themselves and giggle about it, sanity lost to the time of night when everything is hilarious. They write a song, one that’s not quite about themselves but feels like it is every time their eyes lock over that one lyric Dan would have cut just a little while ago.

The release date is on the horizon. There’s a whole tour after that. They’ve voiced characters for Disney and they’re making an app and still have a whole world of YouTube to keep up with.

Dan watches the video they just edited one last time before posting.

If he pays attention, he can tell that his voice has gone less flat and his shoulders less tense since they first started filming together again.

He smiles.

\---

“You’re going on tour soon, aren’t you?” says his therapist.

Dan smiles. He doesn’t wear baggy hoodies to his appointments anymore, doesn’t feel the need to bury himself in the chair. Today, though, he shoves his hands into his pockets and hopes it’s not too obvious that talking about his own success makes him just a little uncomfortable.

“Yeah,” he says. “First show’s October 8th, the same day as the book launch.”

“Sounds like an eventful day,” says Eric. “Does it make you nervous?”

Dan chuckles. “No shit it does.”

“Anything in particular you’re anxious about?” asks Eric.

Dan presses back against the cushions. Questions like that are the one thing that still make his pulse pick up, his stomach twist as his mind rifles through every possible answer. It’s the type of open-ended vulnerability Dan doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to.

His hands curl into fists in his pockets. “It’s going to be the most closely I’ve interacted with my fans since, you know, shit went down a few years ago,” he says. “I’m kinda scared I’m not ready.”

Eric nods, the way he does when he’s found something to talk about that appointment.

Dan swallows, and tries to untangle his thoughts before he needs to utter them out loud.

\---

The first person to hand him a rainbow flag at a meet and greet is a girl who comes up to his shoulders.

Her hands are shaking and she’s wearing a smile, and she presses it into his open palm with a quiet request that they sign it, then take a picture with it. Phil smiles, in the way he always does when meeting a fan. He asks if she’s excited for the show, and Dan only listens to the peppiness of her response.

He stares at the flag in his hand. The lighting in the room makes the bright colours reflect against his skin.

It’s thrilling.

It’s really not what he needs to be focusing on right now.

He looks up. The girl is smiling at them. “Your videos made a real difference in my life,” she says. “They helped me through a rough time.”

Dan feels his smile widen. His fingers tighten around the fabric in his hand. He wonders if she knows.

Wonders why the thought doesn’t terrify him anymore.

“I know the feeling,” he says. It makes her eyes gleam brighter.

Something like pride flares in Dan’s chest. He holds the flag and watches as both he and Phil write their names on it.

\---

His family comes to the London show. Phil’s family does too.

They all meet up afterwards, sipping champagne in the privacy of Dan and Phil’s flat. His nan talks about how proud she is. His mum talks to Phil like he’s Dan’s best friend and business partner. From across the lounge, Kath smiles at Dan like he’s her son, too.

It makes his chest ache. Guilt weighs heavy on his mind. He does the rest of his glass in one sip and ignores the way his grandad laughs at him for it.

A few hours ago, he was kissing Phil good luck. He was holding a rainbow flag in his hand and listening to a fan talk about how they just recently came out. He was being wished _good luck, child_ by Phil’s mum.

“Anyone want something to eat?” he says. It’s too loud, too obvious.

Phil jumps from his seat. “I’ll help.”

Nigel smiles. “Whatever you have would be lovely,” he says.

Dan nods. He stumbles over to the kitchen. Away from prying eyes, he lets his weight sink forward onto the countertop, head dipped. It feels heavy now, with all the thoughts running circles around it.

Phil’s hand lands on his back. His voice is low when he says, “Are you okay?”

Dan shrugs. Phil knows him well enough to know it means _no._

\---

Tour consumes their lives that year.

It’s rehearsal, then show, then travel overnight to another rehearsal and another show. It’s late nights on the bus and early mornings in theaters. It’s meeting countless new people and taking thousands and photos and hearing stories that make everything seem more worth it than it ever has before.

It’s a rush.

Dan feels it, a thrill in his bones, a continuous buzz of adrenaline at his temples, just enough to make everything else fade away.

There are moments that real life comes rushing back. The skit about who gets the double bed leaves his stomach feeling tight, long after both he and Phil have set their things down around the room. Sometimes there’s a photo taken for DAPGO that feels just a little too real to share. Some nights, signing rainbow flags edges on too much.

Most days, though, he settles into bed with Phil after the show, mind energized and body exhausted, and feels nothing but contentment.

\---

They’re home for a little bit in the summer, after America but before Australia.

It feels different. Dan feels different. At the appointment when he first got back to London, Eric suggested it might be because interacting with his audience in a new way has shifted his perspective on what he does. It makes sense.

YouTube feels different, when Dan sits down to make a new video.

Two months since he did this last, he sits down at his desk with a pen and a brain full of muddled thoughts. He scribbles them down and crosses them out and refreshes the tab he has open just to see which videos show up this time. His subscription box is filled with tag videos.

Normally, it might make Dan laugh.

Today, he scribbles _diss track_ at the top of the page and starts writing.

He sends it to Phil afterwards, an attachment in an email that just says _does this sound okay?_

His chest is tight. There are parts in there – well, just the one, really – that he wouldn’t have said before TATINOF. He kind of wants to go and delete it. His fingers just tap idly against the desk instead. He thinks of holding rainbow flags in his hands and hearing stories of people coming out and he knows this isn’t that, but it feels like a step.

It is a step. It’s a fucking huge step, wedged precariously between jokes and twisted to fit his branding.

His phone vibrates. Phil’s response is a text, not an email.

It just reads _Yeet!_

The normalcy of it makes Dan feel a little more okay.

\---

Another huge step is standing on a stage together, accepting Phil’s solo award _together._

Dan fumbles through awkward jokes, even though he feels his smile stretched wide, feels his chest burst with pride. They walk off stage together, sip champagne at a party afterwards until Dan’s brain’s gone a little foggy and his heart very much soft and he and Phil are sliding into a car together, still in matching sparkly suits.

He plucks at Phil’s fingers the entire drive back to the flat, and tries not to think about how it makes him feel eighteen again.

“That was a gesture,” he says. “Like, a proper sappy gesture.”

Phil’s hand flips under his. Their fingers thread together. There’s a driver just a few feet away and Dan doesn’t much care if he notices anything.

“Was it okay?” says Phil. “I should’ve asked first. Didn’t think I’d win, though.”

“You deserve it.”

Phil laughs, bumping their knees together. “Of course Phil trash number one would think that.”

Any other day, Dan might have laughed, or let out a squeak knowing full well it’s a nickname he gave himself. Phil’s voice would be less soft. Dan wouldn’t be resting his head on Phil’s shoulder in the back of a car with a stranger, genuinely feeling like the universe might rip in half if he didn’t have this, didn’t have Phil.

Maybe his drunken brain is a little dramatic, but Dan got to share this today, in their own safe, goofy little way. And maybe it’s the alcohol, but it feels a lot like exhilaration rushing through his veins.

He squeezes Phil’s hand and mumbles, “I love you.”

\---

Tour ends in December.

A few weeks before that, Phil sits across from Dan on the sofa and declares, “We need a new project.”

Dan doesn’t ask why. He knows it’s for his own benefit more than anything. They’ve talked about it before, during long drives between cities, long nights in bed. Phil knows the way projects make energy vibrate under Dan’s skin, the way it forces everything else out of his mind, just for a little while.

He knows the way Dan can crash afterwards.

“Have anything in mind?”

“I was thinking gaming videos,” says Phil, because of course he has a plan. Phil’s brain is far more business minded than Dan’s is, always figuring out their next step forward. “People like them, and they’re fun to make, right?”

“Right,” says Dan. “Like our own vlogmas?”

Phil smiles. “Well, more like gamingmas.”

“Sounds lit,” says Dan.

He knows in the coming days they’ll plan it out more, decide on an upload schedule and collect a shortlist of games they can play. Phil will try to film a bunch in advance because it’s less stressful that way. Dan will probably edit them, because he’s used to it, and Phil will make thumbnails and it’ll be a new little routine to figure out.

Now, though, he just says, “Can I recommend something else?”

Phil hums.

“Can we use it to, like, lower our boundaries?” says Dan. “Be more authentically us or whatever?”

Part of him feels like the point is belied by planning it in advance, but they’ve planned every step in advance for so long that undoing everything they’ve built up needs to be intentional too. Dan needs it to be intentional.

“Are you ready for that?” says Phil.

Dan shrugs one shoulder. “Reckon I am.”

He’s pretty sure Phil is, too.

\---

“I want to come out.”

He’s sitting in therapy again, tugging at the sleeves of his jumper. Eric’s the first person he’s told. Even Phil doesn’t really know. Part of Dan’s not sure _he_ knows for certain. The thought makes his heart race and his brain a little crazy.

But keeping it a secret is starting to feel like a burden, far greater than the alternative.

Eric smiles, nods. “Now?”

“Sorta,” says Dan. “But I have all this –” he waves his hand in the air, tries to make the word sound lighter “– trauma.”

“You do,” says Eric. “So, what are we going to do about it?”

\---

Dan sits down in front of his bedroom mirror.

Phil’s downstairs, grumbling at the Xbox because he keeps losing his game. Dan can just barely hear it from where he’s sitting, but it’s comforting, familiar when Dan’s brain feels all muddled and messy and confused.

This was Eric’s idea, something about acclimating himself to hearing the words in new contexts, happier contexts, _safe_ contexts.

It still doesn’t feel safe. He’s sitting in his own home, in PJs and slippers with his hair looking an absolute disaster, and still the word tastes bitter in his mouth. Still, it feels like something he shouldn’t say, shouldn’t even think of saying when it’s not spur of the moment and gleeful and proud.

His fingernails dig into his thighs.

“I like boys,” he says, because that’s always been the safest.

His chest buckles around an exhale. He drags his hands up his legs, staring down at the drag of his pyjamas against his skin. His duvet is soft underneath him. There’s dirty laundry piled up on the floor. There’s photos of a life, happy and shared, littered across the room.

Dan takes a breath. He catches his own gaze in the mirror and says, “I’m gay.”

\---

“You’re being more open,” says Phil one day.

They’re lying on the sofa, passing the PlayStation controller back and forth. The words distract Dan just long enough to send him falling into a pit. He hands the controller over, but Phil just sets it down on his lap without playing, leaving the game’s music to play on loop through the lounge.

He rests his hand on Dan’s head, running his fingers through strands of hair that have been left curly at the end.

“It’s on purpose, isn’t it?” he asks.

Dan hums. “Yeah. Feels right.”

Phil’s thumb sweeps across his temple. “It does,” he says. “I like seeing more of the real you.”

“That’s just cause you’re, like, in love with me, sap.”

He feels the rumble of Phil’s laugh, and finds himself matching it, chuckling at the ceiling to the tunes of their favourite pastime.

Phil tugs at a curl. “Yeah, well, let me be proud of you, rat,” he says.

\---

“I’m gay.”

He says it to Phil one day when they’re lying in bed, naked and sated and quietly content. There’s a hand on his back and under his own he can feel the steady beat of Phil’s heart, the silent rise and fall of his chest around each breath.

It’s been long weeks of effort. He’s gotten used to hearing it in his own voice, to seeing the way his mouth moves around the words in the mirror. They don’t make his heart ache the same way, don’t make him think of dark days spent sitting alone to avoid what other people had to say.

Telling Phil was Eric’s idea, the logical next step, the one person who cannot possibly be surprised or afronted by Dan’s queerness.

The one person who almost knows what those words mean to Dan.

His response is a kiss dropped to the top of Dan’s head, the protective splay of his fingers across Dan’s ribs.

“I know,” he says, voice soft with so many things, lilted with just a hint of teasing.

Somehow, that’s exactly what Dan needed from him.

\---

The idea of a second tour starts off fleeting, and slowly becomes concrete.

It starts with missing the road, and the shows, and seeing their fans. They talk about it in fragments, in split second ideas for segments that never made it into TATINOF, that they might not even have considered for TATINOF. It goes unspoken that they’re different now. It hasn’t even been a year, but they’ve grown so very much.

One day, Dan says, “If we ever do another tour, it’s gonna be more honest, just Dan and Phil, not _Dan and Phil._ ”

The idea sticks.

\---

“Have you seen this Dream Daddy game?”

Phil looks up from his computer. “You mean the one literally every straight gamer is playing right now?”

Dan laughs, moving his mouse from the jacksepticeye video it was hovering over. “Yeah, that one,” he says. “Looks funny, don’t you think?”

Phil shrugs. “Suppose so,” he says. “Why? You gonna buy it?”

“I was thinking we could play it on the gaming channel.”

That gets Phil’s attention. His hand falls from the keyboard and his eyes go wide and Dan would laugh if his insides didn’t suddenly feel all squirmy.

“You want to make a video?” says Phil. “But that’s, like, proper queer.”

“I know.” Dan shrugs, awkward and tense. “I think it could be fun. Besides, if all the straight guys are playing it, why can’t we?”

Phil agrees. They buy the game and sit down to film a video. The nerves come only when the red record light on their camera is shining above the screen of the PC, and Dan’s hand is on the mouse, waiting to start.

“We don’t have to do this if we don’t want to, you know,” says Phil. It’s his quiet, not-for-the-camera voice.

Dan matches it when he says, “No, I want to if you do.”

They start the game and never finish it.

Dan’s proud of them anyway.

\---

His hands are shaking when he hits upload on _Daniel and Depression._

He closes the tab the second it’s posted, slams his laptop shut, and turns off notifications on his phone. Even though he knows he’s going to be miserable at it, he picks up the PlayStation remote and tries to play a game with Phil. That’s always been the best distraction.

The video isn’t long. He only manages a few deaths before curiosity gets the best of him and he’s picking his phone back up.

What he finds is lovely, an endless stream of support that makes his whole body go warm. Tears sting in his eyes. His lips quiver around a smile.

It’s the most open he’s ever been with his audience.

It’s the most at home he’s felt among them in years.

\---

He tells Bryony next.

It’s game night at their flat, one last time before 2017 switches to 2018 and Dan and Phil’s lives go wild with last minute tour preparation. Heartthrob is laid out across the table. There’s a tiny pencil in Dan’s hand and a wine glass in front of him and happy laughter rumbling in his chest.

His brain reminds him on repeat that this would be a great time to do it.

He watches Bry flip one of the cards over. It’s their third round of the night. The card she lays down on the table is of a guy with high cheekbones and light eyes, someone Phil would definitely label Dan’s type.

His chest goes tight. He swallows, then chokes out: “God, I’m gay.”

It’s awkward and stilted. Phil giggles against the rim of his wine glass, a little tipsy by now. Bryony definitely knows him well enough to know he wouldn’t normally say it.

She stares at him for a moment, eyes gleaming.

“Well, guess we know who Dan’s choosing.”

She laughs. Phil does too. Dan can’t help but join in.

\---

“How are you feeling?” asks Eric.

Dan smiles. He actually means it today when he says, “Good.”

“Is there anything you want to talk about today?”

There’s a lot he probably should talk about. He and Phil are considering buying a house again. There’s another tour on the horizon. His friend group just shifted. His whole career feels like it’s in a perpetual state of shifting. There’s so many things running around in Dan’s mind.

None of them are as sad or apathetic or anxious as they used to be.

He crosses his legs in the seat and rests his hands on his legs and says, “I think I might be ready to come out this year.”

\---

“So, we’re actually going to make Dab and Evan gay?”

They’re sitting in front of the gaming PC. The camera’s still not on, though it will be in a few moments. They’ve had this conversation before, after last time they filmed, last time they planned videos, lying in bed one night and discussing the future of the gaming channel.

“I think the fans would actually revolt if we didn’t, Phil,” he says.

It’s not the only reason. Phil knows it’s not the only reason, but this one makes him laugh and that’s exactly what Dan wanted.

“Right, of course,” he says. “Can’t have that, now can we?”

“Of course not,” says Dan. He reaches up, resting his finger over the record button. “Now, ready to initiate the gay love story of the century?”

Phil smiles, the crinkly kind that always precedes a joke. “I thought we did that in 2009,” he says.

Dan rolls his eyes and makes the stupid goose honk noise he always does when Phil says something like that. Phil copies him and then bursts into laughter.

He’s laughing, too, when he hits record. He’ll just cut this bit out later.

\---

Dan starts scripting the video in March.

Well, there’s been fragments of it littered across his harddrive and notebooks for years, but this is the first time he sits down and truly decides he’s going to write a coming out video. He has three months to do it and years of thinking about it supporting him and it feels like enough.

It feels like so, _so_ much.

He sits there for a few hours. When he walks away, the document’s still blank.

\---

There are a few specific videos that make Dan realize how much he’s changed.

_Giving The People What They Want_ is one of them.

He watches it back after editing, hand hovering over the mouse to cut out any stray frames that might have made it through the process. Phil’s sitting next to him, hunched forward and gaze locked on the screen. He’s smiling before the true content of the video has even started.

Dan is too.

It’s different from anything they’ve made before. Dan of five years ago would find it absolutely mind boggling to watch. Dan of today knows that’s something he should very much be proud of.

There’s gay jokes, and talk about their future, and the type of YouTube challenge usually reserved for couples. The first video they ever made together is in it.

It makes Dan’s heart ache to know he can actually acknowledge that day again.

“Looks great,” says Phil when the video’s done. “I think they’ll like it.”

“They better. We’re giving the people what they want, Phil.” He laughs. “And we have, like, a shit ton of tour tickets to sell.”

Phil bumps their knees together under the desk. “Hush,” he says. “You know that’s not the only reason this is important.”

Dan does.

It feels just as significant that the thought doesn’t terrify him.

\---

“I want to post the video in June,” he says.

Phil doesn’t need to ask what the video is. It’s been a little part of their conversations since the year started.

He just yelps at the TV as a green shell narrowly misses his car and then turns to Dan and asks, “For pride month?”

“Yeah.” Dan rounds a corner. He’s losing part of his lead to the computer, but it doesn’t matter. “Seems fitting, don’t you think?”

Phil nods, then squeaks at the game. “Yeah, for sure.”

They’re quiet then, until they finish the race. Dan manages to salvage his victory and Phil just barely edges around the Koopa Troopa to finish in second. He tosses the remote down on the sofa cushion as the podium sequence comes up on screen and turns to Dan instead.

“Are you sure you want to do it during tour?” he asks. “People are going to ask about it.”

Dan shrugs. “I just want to do it.”

Phil rests his hand on Dan’s leg and squeezes his ankle gently. “But?”

Dan swallows. Sometimes he wishes Phil wasn’t so good at hearing all the things Dan doesn’t say. “That means I need to tell my family before June,” he says.

He wonders when that became the scariest part. Maybe it always was.

\---

Interactive Introverts is a lot like TATINOF.

There’s a car and a set and rehearsals followed by shows followed by travel. It’s busy, positively hectic, but Dan loves it. He’s always loved it.

They sign more rainbow flags and hear more stories. They’re more open and honest. Their Instagrams are filled with snapshots of their actual lives and it should be weird but it isn’t.

Dan didn’t expect to like that part, but he does.

\---

His family comes to the London show again.

They come back to the flat afterwards. Dan could tell them then, over champagne and celebration. He’s settled into the sofa next to Phil, with his mum across the room and his grandparents nearby and he could so easily just be like, _hey I’ve been meaning to tell you guys that I’m gay._

Except it’s not that easy.

His mum is smiling. His nan is talking about how proud she is. Dan’s whole world feels bubbly with post-show excitement that won’t crash for another few hours.

He could say it, but he doesn’t.

\---

They leave the UK at the end of May.

Dan leaves his last chance to tell them behind.

He and Phil curl up in their own bed the day before flying to the Netherlands and part of him, a big, overwhelming part of him, wants to cry. Instead, he just stares at the wall, the endlessly shifting shades of black that have kept him company through even darker nights, and lets Phil hold him.

“I couldn’t do it,” he says into the silence. “I want to but I – I don’t know _how._ ”

Phil’s arms clutch tighter around his middle. It should be a day of celebration. It should be one last night having sex in their own bed before bouncing around hotel rooms and bunks for months on end. Instead, it’s the brush of Phil’s lips against the round of his shoulder, reassurances spoken in a whisper.

“You don’t have to tell them if you’re not ready,” says Phil.

Dan wants to say _I am ready._

He thought he was. Obviously he was wrong.

\---

June goes by and he doesn’t upload the video.

It’s not even made, not fully scripted, and yet there’s still something bitter that twists in his stomach when June 30th bleeds into July 1st while they’re in the Middle-of-Fucking-Nowhere, USA. He squeezes into Phil’s bunk that night, too big bodies squished into a too small bed, and watches whatever stupid animal video Phil’s watching.

His brain doesn’t have the energy to do much else.

July goes by and he still doesn't upload. Then August. Then September.

He can blame the tour for those months. They’re still busy, still traveling the world and that’s reason enough to not have time to sit down and make something he’s willing to put out.

Then October passes, and November.

December comes and they don’t do gamingmas. They end Dan vs. Phil and leave the Sims on a high note. Just in case, Phil says when they plan things out.

“It won’t be forever,” says Dan. “I just need to, like, actually live my truth.”

Phil smiles. He reaches out and rests his hand on Dan’s cheek. “I know,” he says. “You will.”

\---

Step one is actually coming out to his parents this time.

It’s also the hardest step. Dan’s had months to finish writing the rest of the video, to figure out what he wants to with it, but he knows it can’t be finished until he does this. As distant as their relationships may sometimes be, he refuses to come out to his family at the same time as a million strangers on the internet.

Hence, well, step one.

He tries. A lot. Sometimes it feels like after TATINOF, when the guilt of not having told them yet outweighs his ability to say a word about it. Other times, it feels like after Interactive Introverts, when everyone seems happy and saying anything feels like it would ruin that.

Step one is a failure the first time, and the second, and the third.

May comes around again. This time last year, the anticipation faded into disappointment and Dan’s progress seemed to crumble as he prepared to step onto a plane to the rest of Europe.

This year, he sits down with his laptop and tells Phil, “I’m just gonna email them.”

“Your coming out?”

Dan nods. He hopes he looks more certain about it than he feels.

Phil smiles. “Okay,” he says. “Let me know if you need anything.”

\---

Dan cries that night.

Happy tears. Overwhelmed tears. The very best kind of tears that leave his head feeling happy and his chest feeling light and his whole world brighter than it was that morning. He has emails from his family saved forever, and his boyfriend’s arms wrapped around him, and every time he thinks he feels steady again, another wave comes.

His eyes burn. He doesn’t care.

His family _knows_. And they still love him.

It’s everything little Dan would have wanted.

\---

He films the video in a studio with an actual background and fancy lights.

It’s still his camera that sits on the tripod. It’s still Phil who sits behind the camera, with a proud smile on his face and the script Dan wrote clutched between his hands. It’s a jacket he’s worn many times before draped over his shoulders and the curls he finally embraced resting atop his head and that’s exactly what Dan wanted.

He feels like himself.

He stares into a lens and says, “I’m gay,” and feels more like himself than he has in a very, very long time.

\---

He posts the video in June.

His hands are shaking and his heart is racing and he stays on his computer just long enough to watch the internet freak out about the title before closing his laptop and setting it aside. Phil drapes an arm over his shoulder and holds him close. They throw on an episode of _The Office_. Dan’s pretty sure neither of them watch it.

On the coffee table, his phone chimes with texts from friends and family. His Twitter notifications are probably beyond crazy. It’ll be a while before he ventures into the YouTube comment section.

For now, he just sits in his own home, smiling, and gives himself time to be proud.

That’s what he’s fought for most, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on tumblr [@huphilpuffs](huphilpuffs.tumblr.com)! Huge thanks to insectbah for the last minute beta read!


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